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The Red Rudolph cocktail is named after the famous reindeer of Christmas stories. And while it’s a great choice for Christmas time or cold weather, it’s great anytime you want a warm drink that tastes like cranberry, orange and sweet cinnamon.

This drink is served warm. It has orange curacao and cinnamon schnapps, which are both sweet liqueurs, with a base of vodka and cranberry juice.

The tartness of the cranberry juice cuts some of the sweetness. Overall, it’s a mellow drink with lovely fruit and spice notes. Aesthetically, I just love the look of the sugar pearls on top of the whipped cream.

Red Rudolph cocktail with whipped cream and gold pearl sprinkles

Because it’s a sweet cocktail, this makes a great dessert drink. You can enjoy it after dinner or by itself during the evening.

It’s a little tricky to pair with meals, but it works very well with salty snacks like chips, peanuts, or pretzels. It actually works well as brunch cocktail, because the dominant flavor is cranberry, which works well with many egg dishes like omelets and quiche, and also pastries.

It’s also a fairly weak cocktail, since most of the alcohol in it is in the form of liqueurs which aren’t very high proof, which is also a good quality to have in a brunch cocktail.

If you want to make a stronger version of this one, just swap out some of the cranberry juice for vodka. Raising the amount of vodka up to an ounce would make this a standard strength cocktail.

Using an ounce and a half would put it on the strong side. It’s definitely a recipe you can feel free to tweak.